Cables for carrying power, data, control, or other electrical or optical signals are often bundled to simplify their handling, connection, or routing. It is well known to utilize a harness including rings, straps, collars, and/or an outer sheath around a plurality of cables to form and maintain a bundle comprising those cables. Where the harness ends, typically near the ends of the cables, the cables flare out to allow the individual cables or sub-bundles to extend to their own destinations. Bundles themselves may be bundled together in a super-bundle.
It is also known in the prior art to have cables of different lengths exiting a harness, so as to allow sufficient length for each particular cable to reach its desired destination. Typically, the individual cables are not and cannot be controllably arranged across the cross section of the bundle at its end to enable orderly routing of the cables in the proper directions, without, for example, undue crossing of individual cables.
One known structure for bundling cables utilizes a sheath to contain the cables along the majority of the length of the bundle. At the ends of the bundle, a collar, such as heat-shrink tubing, is provided just before the point of breakout. The individual constituent cables flare out from the heat-shrink collar in varying lengths to reach their destinations. Unfortunately, the cables in the bundle are prone to relative slipping and displacement across the cross-sectional area of the bundle. That can be attributable to a natural tendency of the cables to form into a bundle having a circular perimeter outline, especially within a heat-shrink tubing or other constrictive member around the cables. That relative slipping, displacement, and tendency to form a circular bundle can cause the cross-sectional pattern of the cables as they exit the harness to mismatch their pattern of target destinations. That can be problematic. The results can include (1) undesirable lengthwise stretching or bend strain on the cables; (2) undesirable strain on the cables' terminating connectors and their destination connector ports; (3) greater probability of connecting a cable to a wrong destination; (4) disorderly and unsightly crossing of cables; (5) extra time and effort for a person to connect the cables to their destinations; and even (6) inability to connect a cable to its destination.